by Peter Parkin
"There's one document that refers to the side effect of a reduced life span—cut in half—for each of these super-soldiers, so the need to bring them back to America after one or two tours of duty and get them married and breeding before they die. Since they'll be genetically modified by these alien organisms, their offspring will inherit the same super-soldier qualities. Freaks—and, aliens, all of them."
Fiona poured herself a cup of coffee. Dennis noticed that she seemed to have regained her composure. She walked over to Brett. "Having worked in the Pentagon for an awful long time now, I've come to feel that I couldn't believe anything I was telling the Press. Call it sixth sense, but my brain was warning me that nothing was what it seemed to be—that nothing was the truth. War is an obsession for these people, and gaining an edge over our enemies—enemies that in most cases they've created themselves by their own belligerence—seems to be all that matters. I hate to admit it, but while all this shocks and horrifies me, none of it really surprises me at all. That's the sad part in all of this for me. That's what makes me cry."
Dennis sat on the edge of the conference table. "My mom knew all of this, and she chose to just literally bury it. And take a payoff to shut up about it."
Brett grimaced. "Denny, I think it's more complicated than that. Her boss was killed, and while we know now that Barb hadn't warned her about anything and that Barb killed Layton herself, I think Lucy knew in her heart that Layton hadn't killed himself. Lucy rushed to get the information protected so she could protect herself and her family. Then she quit. She was being a pragmatist. She decided to care only about the practicalities and not the logic. She decided she couldn't save the world but she could save herself and her family. Forgive her."
Dennis wrapped his arms around Fiona and gave her a gentle hug. "Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not. I don't know what it is I'm feeling right now. It's as if the world is about to come to an end and I feel powerless. The world is out of control and we're all just standing around watching it happen. And as Brett says, how far has this gone? We're only reading here about the beginning of Operation Creepy Crawlers. They had barely begun back when these documents were buried—Christ, that was over thirty years ago!"
Brett turned off the fiche reader, popped the microfilm back into its envelope and walked over to a wall safe. "We'll continue to protect this in the meantime." He spun the dial, opened the heavy door and stuffed the envelope inside. "The combination is 21-207-21. In case something happens to me, you come back here and get it. Avery and George will allow you access. I've instructed them already."
Dennis walked over to Brett. "You sound worried. What are you planning?"
"Well, with or without you two, I'm going to try to be Captain America and save the world. All it will take is some video—these documents alone are not enough. I'm going to get onto the island of Nevis and find a way to gain access to that laboratory."
Dennis looked over at Fiona. She hesitated for a second, then nodded. "It looks like we're both with you, Brett. Way back when I heard my mom muttering what I thought was the word 'Skeleton' and then realized she was actually saying 'Shackleton,' at that very moment I had the eerie feeling that my life was going to change. I can't explain it—I just know now that I want to have some say in how it's going to change. And it looks like Fiona feels the same way."
*****
"Randy, I have another little job for you."
"I figured you'd be back to me. The same thing, right?"
"Yeah, the same thing—I'm not finished with it yet."
"Okay, Brett. Israel again?"
"Most definitely Israel. Let them take the hacking hit. Deflects nicely away from America's imagined enemies. Little do they know, Israel's their real enemy anyway."
"Done. What do you need?"
"I need you to go back into the Pentagon and CDC sites, 'Operation Creepy Crawlers,' and tell me what trips are planned down to Nevis within the next two weeks. And who exactly is going."
"Shouldn't be a problem. Anything else?"
"Once you have that info, I'm going to be asking you for a rush job on fake identifications and passports. There will be at least three of us, and possibly more, depending on how many people in the Pentagon and CDC contingent are making the trip."
"Again, no problem. Why don't you give me something really challenging sometime? I'm getting bored."
"I pay you well—so get over the boredom." "True. I'll try. Shalom."
*****
"I know what happened twenty years ago, Dennis."
Dennis and Brett were sitting in the lounge of the 'safe house' smoking cigars and sipping brandy. Fiona had turned in hours ago. They had been talking about their careers and various little adventures over the years. Dennis had led an exciting life, but it paled against the stories that Brett shared with him. They were now on their second bottle of brandy, which Dennis figured might have contributed to the conversation suddenly turning more personal.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your dad. I know the real story."
Dennis took a gulp of his brandy. The burning ecstasy was leaving him light-headed.
"No one is supposed to know about that. It was sealed."
Brett shrugged.
Dennis leaned forward in his chair, cigar in hand. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Don't do it. You're better than that."
"Don't do what?"
"Travis Wilkinson."
Dennis gulped and involuntarily flicked the ash from his cigar tip onto the carpet. "You're out of line, Brett."
"Don't throw your life away, Denny. You did Keith and Felicity—I know you did and I don't blame you in the least. But don't add another one. They'll surely trace it back to you. There's documentation in the Washington Police Department about Mr. Wilkinson, and how they suspect you deliberately refused to identify him. If you do him, you'll make their case stronger. You have motive and they know it.
"You'll then have had motive in three disappearances—because I know you won't leave him lying around. You'll make him disappear just like the other two. They'll simply make you the guy for the six vigilante killings too. One more killing will do you in, Denny. Trust me on this."
"I don't know what you're talking about." "Yes, you do."
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
"Okay, we have a plan. And don't panic when you hear it—remember, we do have experience with things like this. Avery and I will make sure we're as safe as we can possibly be, trust me."
They were back in the conference room: Dennis, Fiona, Brett, and this time Avery Duncan as well. Dennis looked over at Avery, then at Brett, and raised his eyebrows in a question.
"Ah, don't worry. Avery is right up to date on all of this—and he's probably my closest friend and confidant. We've known each other for over twenty years—in fact I was Best Man at his wedding and the Godfather to two of his children. Feel better?"
Dennis nodded. "Okay, continue."
"We're flying to St. Kitts in four days—so Friday morning. Avery's rented a speedboat for us, so we can avoid having to depend on the ferry service between St. Kitts and Nevis. Avery will also decide where the best landing spot is for us—one of the beaches that will bring us closest to the access point for the laboratory. It's located inland through the jungle, halfway between the shore and Nevis Peak. The channel between St. Kitts and Nevis is only two miles wide, so a short journey...going in will be easy, but coming back may be more perilous. We'll be glad the channel is short. But we won't cross it directly going in—we'll take the longer route down the St. Kitts coast to avoid attention, and then come in at a 180-degree angle to the Nevis shoreline."
Fiona raised her hand. "Sorry to cut you off, but who are 'we?' What roles will we each play?"
Brett smiled. "Typical journalist. You're getting ahead of me and, just like a reporter at a White House briefing, you even respectfully raise your hand! Next time, just shout it out—no need for formality here."
Fiona nod
ded. "Sorry, I'll be patient."
"Good. I'll continue. My technology expert, Randy McEwen, has come back with some key information. There's a contingent from the Pentagon and the CDC heading down to Nevis on Thursday. An Air Force Colonel named Howard Wentworth, along with two personnel from the CDC: Doctor Gene Sikorsky and his assistant Doctor Angela Huntington. Both of these doctors are microbiologists.
"We've done some photo scanning and decided that Avery here will be the best one to impersonate the Colonel, and since Avery was a Colonel himself he's well familiar with the jargon and aura that a Colonel emits. A makeup expert will join us here on Thursday and convert Avery to look as much as possible like Wentworth. I've used this lady many times before and she's a wizard. It won't take her too long or too much effort to pull off the transformation. She's already looked at the photos of Wentworth and Avery and feels it'll be a snap."
Dennis' organized mind was trying hard to sift through the plan and look for loopholes. "What about the other two?"
"They're the easy ones. Randy says that from what he's been able to tell, it's pretty normal for the lead envoy to cancel these missions at the last minute without any questions being raised. It's happened dozens of times over the past year alone. So, since Wentworth is the lead envoy, Randy will hack into the Pentagon email system and send messages to both Sikorsky and Huntington on Thursday afternoon postponing the trip. He'll send the messages under Wentworth's name."
"What about Wentworth? He'll think the trip is still on."
"I'll handle him."
Dennis and Fiona both raised their eyebrows.
"Folks, there are just some things you don't need to know, okay?" Dennis and Fiona each reluctantly nodded.
Brett turned to his friend. "Avery, do you have anything to add at this point?"
"Yes. Just the mention that Randy is arranging official passports and identifications for us—me as Wentworth, Brett as Sikorsky, and Fiona as Huntington."
Dennis frowned. "What about me?"
"You'll be manning the boat, awaiting our return to the beach. You're far too tall to impersonate Sikorsky, and luckily for us Brett looks a lot like him without any real change aside from adding glasses. And Fiona is an easy pass for Huntington—our makeup girl just has to dye Fiona's hair blonde and insert contact lenses changing her eyes from hazel to blue. Then she'll be a dead ringer."
"Okay. However, I can't leave the country without being flagged." "Randy has a new ID for you, too. You're a lawyer named Frank Cotterhill. All the identifications and passports should be here by tomorrow."
Fiona jumped in. "So, once Dennis lands us on the beach, how far a hike will it be through the jungle?"
Brett got up and poured himself some coffee. "We won't hike too far. Avery will research a spot with road access. There are lots of homes along the beach. We'll steal a car and take the road right to the lab's front door."
"Will they give us access to all of the sections of the lab?"
"With our credentials, shouldn't be a problem. But I do need a magnetic access card, which Wentworth has possession of. Randy won't be able to replicate that. So, I'll get it when I pay Colonel Wentworth a visit."
Fiona winced.
"No, Fiona. He's not going to die. He'll just be out of action for a while.
Trust me, okay?"
Fiona nodded slowly. "Okay."
Dennis took a long gulp from his water glass. His throat was dry, and all this espionage talk was making it worse. "How are we going to get video? You can't exactly waltz in there with your iPhone held up in front of you. You won't look too authentic."
Brett laughed. "No, we wouldn't, would we? The official purpose of the visit, according to what Randy could ascertain, is just a routine inspection of the facilities. So, they won't be expecting us to take video. And we have to each be careful not to look shocked or surprised by anything we see. We're supposed to be well familiar with what's going on there. So, Fiona, let Avery and I do the talking. We're used to bluffing and bullshitting our way through situations."
"Don't worry, I'll be too frozen with fear to say anything."
"As for the video itself, this is the only purpose for our visit. We need video. I'll be wearing glasses to look like Sikorsky, and these glasses will actually be a high-tech video camera known as Video Optical. They look like normal glasses but contain a powerful video and audio recorder that's tiny and basically invisible. It's a color unit, high resolution and wireless—will transmit directly to a palm size portable DVR which I'll keep in my pocket.
This thing has its own screen and a 40 GB hard drive. It will transfer data to any computer with a USB connector, and it's also completely waterproof in case we end up in the sea."
Fiona shivered.
"Don't worry, the water's very warm this time of the year, Fiona. Sharks would be a worry though." Brett chuckled.
"So, how are we flying?"
"We have a Gulfsteam long-haul jet at our disposal. A G350—hangared at the Norfolk airport. We'll fly from there. The pilots work for me and two other associates of mine—so between us, we keep them busy. They'll simply wait down there for us until our mission is complete, and then fly us back to Norfolk."
"Weapons?"
"We obviously can't take any into the country with us, but we have a contact in Puerto Rico who's already smuggled four Glocks into St. Kitts for us. They'll be waiting for us on the boat we've chartered."
"Jesus, you think of everything, don't you?"
"Yes, I do. I have to in my line of work. But give yourself some credit Dennis—so do you, or you wouldn't have asked the questions you did."
Fiona ran her fingers through her long auburn hair. "Brett, how dangerous will this be?"
Brett paused, and strummed his fingers on the conference table. "I won't kid you. Anything could go wrong, and I think you know by now that they are desperate to keep this travesty a secret. So, there is danger—but I think we've mitigated it considerably. We won't be there long either, which is the key to a successful operation. The longer we're there, the greater the chance of something going wrong."
Fiona sighed. "I'm really concerned about how far this thing has gone since 1977. It's scary to think that they've had thirty-plus years to tinker. While I'm scared, to me it seems worth the danger to expose it."
"And we will expose it. Dennis mentioned something the other day when we were looking at the microfilm, and I can't get it out of my head. Those damn chemtrails that we see all the time, not just in the U.S. but virtually everywhere. I always just kind of accepted, as I think everyone did, the occasional feeble explanation that these trails contain aluminum oxide to help deflect the radiating effects of the sun.
"We all know that the magnetosphere has become weaker over the last few decades, from either man-made creations or natural ones, so most of us just take for granted that this bolstering is needed. But after learning about all this creepy crawler experimentation and their initial plans to use jets to spray contagions into the atmosphere to 'dumb down' populations, I wonder...have they been doing that already? To other countries? And a strain just for us here in the United States of America that makes us compliant and less inquisitive, more accepting? Have they, do you think?"
Dennis was cracking his knuckles. "Christ, who knows? If they can nuke the moon, bring alien life forms back to earth and keep all that secret for over three decades, anything's possible I guess. I don't think we can afford to be naïve about anything anymore."
Fiona walked over to the side table and helped herself to a cookie. "It would indeed be naïve of us to think that they've spent thirty years experimenting only—we already know that they've tested chimps in urban areas, not to mention that horrific slaughter of residents on Nevis by the militarized chimps and vervets. There's probably a lot more going on that only a select few know about."
Brett brought his fist down hard on the table. "We'll do our damndest to expose this mess! It's a fortunate thing that this mystery landed in our laps.
Dennis stood up. "So, are we done for now?"
"Yes. Dinner should be on the table in the dining room in about half
an hour. See you all then."
Dennis walked over and put his hand on Brett's shoulder. "Brett, if I need to leave the house for a little while, I need your permission, right?"
Brett eyed him warily. "Yes...me, Avery, or George. And we need to know where you're going and for how long."
"Okay, if I decide I need to go, I'll let one of you know."
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Colonel Howard Wentworth dragged his well-worn garment bag out from under the stairs and carried it up the stairs to the bedroom. He was glad he was only going to be down in Nevis for one night this time. It was a boring island. Well, it wouldn't be too bad if he were there on vacation, enjoying the beaches and the wonderful food. But hanging around a lab surrounded by the nasal-numbing antiseptic smells, not to mention the chattering and howling of those fucking monkeys and chimps, wasn't his idea of a good time.
But he had to be there. They were getting close to being able to test their latest weaponized vapor on a city in the Middle East. And not just any city either, but THE city in THE country that just happened to be the most despised enemy of his United States of America. He was excited. Years of work coming to fruition. And he was proud to have been a part of this project for so many years. Along with many others, he felt as if Operation Creepy Crawlers was his baby. And for a man who had never been married and had no children, the creep project was a suitable substitute.
So many new faces down at the Nevis facility—he had personally fired about a dozen last year alone. The new people were coming along nicely though, quite a few of whom he hadn't even met yet. He hadn't been down there since last year—luckily there were so many Pentagon officials involved in the project, no single person had to be involved all the time. Those who visited were obliged to give everyone a debriefing upon their return. This ensured that everyone was always up to date, just as if they had been there themselves.
